Slow Listening – a group conversation
Slow Listening – a group conversation
Tuesday the 27th of February
A meeting room at Art Hub Copenhagen
1 hour and 30 minutes.
Present: Carolyn F. Strauss, Amalie Sejersdahl, Randi Lindholm Hansen, Lukas Quist Lund.
Unedited AI generated transcription (apologies for spelling mistakes).
No, I was thinking about I’m glad you asked me to bring the first slow reader because what I mentioned yesterday how we use these tools of slow practice or slow research in the margin and and there’s a few of them that came up in the conversation yesterday. yesterday and the reactions with the study group to the practice outside. I had talked about receptivity as being kind of inclusive of listening in terms of sort of also sensory receiving, that is receiving, and practicing receptivity, practicing being receptive. And I would like to thank all of you for being here today. was talking about how in the book, and what for me makes it slow, is this the way we move between different disciplinary practices, different scales across different spaces or geographies. So it’s not only listening to the moment, but it’s listening to the moment. connecting something that can be very tiny. Like I mentioned, like the tiny, one designer describing, studying, you know, watching the tiny unfurling of belief and connecting that to the scale of a landscape, like in another contribution. contribution by an architect who is writing about a landscape on the coast of Chile. So I just give those examples again and I mentioned yesterday for the purpose of the recording. Can I just ask you to repeat so what makes it slow is the connecting to me what makes it slow is that it insists on this dialogue dialogue with other scales, it insists on other spaces or it’s like you can be or that it’s both, that it’s both and more, that it can be practicing slowness, listening in the moment very intimately but also being aware of a larger ecology of listening that’s happening simultaneously. simultaneously or listening to the unfurling of a tiny leaf, but also listening to the movement of the sun and the sand and the sea on the coast in Chile, but also listening into a group kind of environment that, you know, that can be a completely unknown. you know, into a community or something. So it’s like insisting that all of these, this, in this kind of zooming in, so in the, sorry, so I’ll clarify, it’s two things, actually, I’m saying. So one thing is, for example, this morning we did this slow walk, and then I was talking about being aware of this kind of different registers. of speed and also sound that was audible around us. But then I started to cast my imagination beyond the space where we were and beyond what we could potentially hear and movements and these different speeds or movements we could potentially see and imagining how that was unfolding throughout Copenhagen. And also imagining that there are other qualities. bodies at rest, the way ours were. Not at rest, but in a very active, in a very slow movement. So that’s one thing, just to be in a moment, in a practice, but always have a kind of a larger ecological view. So I was talking yesterday about Christine’s practice. Christine Fete is joining us tomorrow. That she developed for her master’s projects. of the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. This project called Adaphone, which is like for sensing and listening into tiny vibrations and electrical currents, movements, things that are happening in the earth, in soil, and it creates a sound in this, it’s amplifying in the form of kind of a sound. sound, but she so that’s a very kind of intimate way of listening down into something that doesn’t, that exceeds our sensory capacities using these electronics and using you know building something, a tool to enable that, and then simultaneously she’s, she’s doing that with a view to how we understand our symbiotic relations with it. you know, with lots of other living beings and how we think about times of, you know, of climate crisis and climate collapse and ecological, you know, like stressors on the, you know, on our ecology. So she simultaneously is focusing on something really tiny, but the impetus to doing it is actually thinking about something. really big and there’s always a view to that and as I said yesterday moving in this direction of wanting to be able to collaborate with farmers in the Netherlands on their lands and like you know seeing how this larger social and also political political, you know, movements or bodies could be influenced even by these small actions. So there’s that, and then at the same time this loneliness for me is this dialogue between different scales of listening or different landscapes of listening. So there’s, so it still is zooming out, but it’s zooming out. in a different way to connect one disciplinary practice, for example, with one kind of practice, with a completely different kind of practice, and encouraging the dialogue between those, or noting maybe, like I experienced yesterday outside, really noticing the space between things, like listening into another body with one kind of practice. also to what you refer to as the membrane gets in between the two, the two bodies, your body and another body or another event. And besides wanting to mention that again, there was one of the participants in the study group, Petrina Favre. She was talking about friction. She was paying attention to friction in between the ground, like having this awareness of the ground, but she continues to use this word friction, and friction is another word we have that’s like a tool in the slow reader. And I thought it’s also something interesting to make. maybe talk about and think about together as a slow listening practice somehow. I don’t know if it’s listening to friction, or I’m looking for trying to look at this document. But in fact, there’s also also intimacy, which is very tied also to kind of receptivity too. I mean, all these things are kind of intertwined and not knowing which is a huge topic that we are always busy with and that I think could be the whole day also talking about. So, can I ask if you consider a risk? and listening to be the same thing, what is the difference between them? When we were kind of coming up with these tools, which really took a lot, like it was a really big process and we didn’t always agree and then when it came to the book we had too many and we had to And then I still think, “Oh, we shouldn’t have used that word. It should have been something else.” But listening was held within receptivity. But of course, the way a Bureau for Listening is approaching listening is… And probably even the way I understand listening now, which is like eight years after we published it. this book, is much more, also, much broader, so maybe receptivity, maybe in that sense, I guess, I guess, receptivity and listening are almost the same, at some point. But I know that the openness document…like there were so we actually had done this event where I had this was also years ago where I had pulled out some quotations from the book and also some kind of keywords that were connected to receptivity at the time and have the same for friction and not knowing intimacy other ones so some of the keywords were open sensing, subtlety, awareness, tuning in, deep listening. These were words that came out of contributions to the book so they were not. Humility, being humble, nuance, non -judgment. -judgment, vessel, womb, fertility, or fertile ground, that’s what I have here, open to receive space for seating, delicate tendrils. These were some of the words connected to it and then some quotations from the book. were things like, we are awake and listening, alert and alive, becoming sensitive to how someone is, someone else is. Search for the slope that will allow passage. Being humble enough to listen deeply to everyone. Silencing our hyperactive egos. And then there were also some other course on how to text like. Yeah? – og forstøjelsen, jeg skrev alligevel på fredag, der skal I lave vent tegning? – Jo. – Ved I fra Norge? – 17. Norge, hvor Norge sætter op. – Sammen med eftermiddag fra 12. fra… – Det er ikke, når vi er færdige. – Nej, men det er fordi, vi har en udstilling, som vi åbner torsdag. – Ja. – Og vi har en journalist, der skal ned. – Så skal vi ikke finde ud af… – Altså, og han er rammet fleksibel, så at vi ikke finder, hvor meget tid jeg har at arbejde. – Hvordan kommer det komme? – Ja, det er det, jeg ikke ved. – Hvad er det? – Hvor er det? – Det er det, du skal vise for at organisere med. – Hvor er det? – Men jeg ved bare, at der er lidt uflexibel, – – så det er jo mere tid, jeg har at løbe på. – Ja. – Altså, for at vi ville sidste ud, – da jeg lige kunne komme til fra kl. 2 senest. – Ja, senest. – Ja, senest. – Og gerne på kl. 1, hvis, ja. – Okay. – Ja. – Og i med på, at der er en masse ud af styre. – Ja. – Ja. – Tak. – Roger. So I guess the corresponding texts are a bit different in that, for example, one dancer choreographer who contributed wrote, “What information reaches you now through your nose, the surface of the skin on the back of your scalp?” Your calves, you know, this part of the leg. Another one by a kind of social activist, designer, I don’t know, artist. It’s about letting go of your subjectivity. She’s quoting from a Spanish plus for Marina Garcets. She talks about learning to listen. breaking something of yourself, to code yourself with new alliances, but also allowing the dual conflictive nature of reality to become part of yourself. She, Marina Garces, doesn’t use the word subjectivity, but she writes about being effective, which in essence is to be sensitive to the way the other is involved. relation to you She calls this honesty with the real It requires a willingness to listen Not only hearing what the other has to say but becoming sensitive to how someone else is And then There’s just two more so I’ll just read the other ones and then we can so So, this one was by Maria Bezel, who’s a Dutch multi -disciplinary designer, who I mentioned about listening to the unfurling of a tiny leaf. If you bring your focus to where you start, it can happen in every moment. We just have to be present and stay there. We listen down to a deeper level that already knows a little more than we do. do and Then there is the connection All the possibilities are there We can enter at the smallest part Where our expect where our expectations are small, but we are awake and listening And the final one is by Alessandro Pomarico who is a Sociologist and organized is a really wonderful pedagogical school now for 10 years or more. A different way of listening is needed, practicing profound contemplation, silencing our hyperactive egos and letting go of control and work. By always doing something, we only accelerate and reproduce what already exists. Question, how can we allow ourselves to be bored rest or wonder so those were just a few things to maybe think about or move from but I have also others as I said kind of relating to these other words which I would be here and would be interested in discussing but that’s a lot already because it’s moving also these examples these aren’t all of the quotes from the book where it’s appearing in in the margin or being interpreted as such but I think it was moving between also different scales and different kinds of but I think what would just put up is a nice fertile soil also to open up this conversation but but almost overwhelming many beautiful paths to follow into yeah so that’s a very nice thank you for sharing and reading that out. And related back to the list of key words you mentioned before the course, I found it super interesting how many of those words I use for my own business practice. So you’re speaking about slowness. I speak about listening, but what’s at the core of that practice is so incredibly similar. Sensitivity, humility, I don’t remember all of them at all, but there were so many words that felt familiar to me and to my own practice and to all of them. of what I think we do With the bureau listening as well. Yeah Yeah Emphasizes the the closeness of The slow the practice of slowness. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Yeah I would like um something you said in the very beginning also about what stoneness is that it was having this dialogue with other or different scales and it made me think about how or what does it even mean like like what is there to have a dialogue with other scalers both because I love the frame of the diamond because listening is is part of the frame where you both share share and perceive. So having a dialogue is also just perhaps receiving these skills or sending them out. But I wonder, as a human being who is very much within my human skills, how do I listen to the non -human skills or the non -conform skills or perhaps even the unknown skills and in which degree is that… a conceptual exercise and when does it become something where the atoms and the cells and the molecules of my body is doing that for me because of course I’m in a process and in a relationship with with things outside of my human scale but in which degree do I enter or exit this relationship? When do I become aware of how my cells are responding to the dust of the stars? And when is that only a conceptual image for me? But you’re just wondering that, obviously, because I read it after this framework with the dialogue, and I just wonder when is it an actual dialogue, when is it something that we do, and when is it a conceptual practice? Yeah. We also define even the word dialogue in a very specific way, which I think is the real meaning of dialogue, which is not just a conversation. It’s not a two -way conversation, it’s actually the creation of a third space. So I’m getting back to the space in between. again, what’s happening in between, so it’s listening into that space and having to practice all these things in order to be able to truly have a dialogue. And how do you then conceive this third space? Because last time we had this testing round, we talked about third listening, or Brandon DeBell was introducing third listening. And what he was emphasizing a lot is that this thirdness is that of the process. It is not for us as an object or a physical thing, but a processional supporting relationship that we can attend to. and I’m just curious about how you then think of this third space within the dialogue. Is that something that is aligned with the words I just used or how do you, yeah, can see that. The third space, just to understand it, the third space being the process. process. And a process of a supporting relationship. Yeah, I kind of think it’s both, like, or I think it’s that and more. Like yesterday I was talking about how this exercise we did outside together, which was only about five minutes, how the exercise we did outside together. trust, like I think how many of you use the word trust, like how this kind of container was created that everybody felt safe. I mean, also that we had been together the whole day and two other people joined, but how effortlessly they kind of slipped into it and also opened up to it. I mean, they both have practices, which are they’ve been practicing this in their own way, in their own practices, so that makes a difference. But I do notice that there’s like, when I have a new group of students, for example, I always do this ritual of, well, now I’ve started doing this ritual of welcome, which is in the book, as a way to kind of bring everyone into the space. space and to create this kind of container that gets kind of it’s not sealed off but it’s yeah it it creates this space for people that people can kind of relax into so I talked a lot about slow research lab in that way is this space that people can really sink into and and And I do talk about it as a third space, actually. I think in my introduction to the slow reader, I mentioned it as a third space, as a gap space, as something in between, something like a space of potentiality that allows things to happen that normally wouldn’t happen. So the process is part of it, but I think the process is also– the process itself can, of course, course breed or generate trust. As you go further and further, you have more and more trust and you become that organism. Like I was talking about this morning, being with a group and then gradually developing affinities for people in the group and it can grow through a process. But I also find it quite simple. simple way that it’s easy to, there’s a way of kind of establishing that space of trust in which things can start happening almost immediately. It’s interesting like they did yesterday. So, but the dialogue or maybe we could talk about friction, also there can also be people who don’t want to be in the dialogue. And that friction is also generative, but the friction is also a space of dialogue because it’s generative of so much as well. I don’t know if I answered your question in terms of framework. I think the friction for me was important to include because that question of how we do it when it becomes the skills outside of the human will, that has an element of friction. And it’s like staying with that and cultivating that friction I think is quite interesting. Also in terms of listening, that listening has this element of friction, it’s not just something that feels nice or calm used to be or something that can be know how to do is something that is rather of difficulty and that friction is for me a marker of when it is happening. If it feels too easy, too conform, too knowable, too understandable, then it’s the way I see it too much within my own scales. It is when it’s become more difficult, more difficult to grasp and name and and deal with when the friction is materializing, I think the listening and the slowness take place. So for me, listening is, friction is like a marker, a criteria, something I can identify when it’s happening. And mostly also to do the other way around, is like when I don’t feel it, then that I should keep exploring if that happens. sense, because I think within the friction where things are collapsing, you tend to know it, and it’s hard to know before you do. It’s like I can kind of easily lie to myself, but the world will impose itself on me in a way where whether lies will collapse and the friction will appear, but doesn’t take place. until I feel it then I keep lying to myself I will keep putting up my scales until the world is forcing them away but that is a movement of friction I hear what you say about friction I’m not sure I agree that it is a necessity for listening or even for slowness, as I understand slowness. I think it is one aspect of it. For me it is not a necessity, it’s not the only way that slow listening can be happening or feel true or of importance. But just now to understand that, because I will agree that that the necessity is not like there’s no dogma But I would say that if you don’t have that element because freezing can also materialize very differently, but without that element I would like be curious or even challenge people to say well, do you then? Have to then exit your own little safety bubble Can you claim to have exit that safety bubble if the element of friction is not there? I And of course the element of friction can be also nice like like sometimes when you do friction on the skin You feel the heat and that’s a nice element. It’s not something of Biden’s per se but I would challenge those that is Escaping the friction to say well, is that because you are sticking to the safety bubble? Yeah, but I like what Alessandro Poetico and what the quotation I just wrote was saying reproducing what already exists Yeah Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but exiting the safety bubble, as you call it, is that the end goal of slow listening. It might be a different form of slow listening. It might be reproducing existing patterns. But for me, it’s not necessarily the end goal to escape my own. space, whatever form that takes or whatever that looks like. It’s it’s it’s it might be various degrees of listening or various stages or forms. Yeah because there’s an element of also nurturing that which is of value and of importance even within my own space. safety bubble. Yeah and the sensitivity and the receptivity is also as I see it a way of kind of the openness that you offer, your context and your surroundings is it’s not necessarily about escape. escaping, it’s also about opening up or allowing something in to your bubble or to your space. Or as what you have been repeating this, both and more and this and more. So it’s not a question of excluding and choosing, but including and inviting and expanding. Yeah, I can listen to it. you, I have to think about Ed Waagli some, the Martinique philosopher who I’ve been like reading a lot and teaching also, sharing with students anyway. I’m not a scholar for this one, so I can teach it, but I can share some of his ideas. And his theory of relation, which he’s most famous for, is about how you can, like he says, I can, I can exchange and be changed by the other without diluting myself, you know. So like that, but that relation is something that’s constantly unfolding, so he talks about like he has this part of his theory is about opacity and opacity or opaqueness, opacity in French, he writes in French, is about how accepting and knowing that like you are opaque everything is in some ways opaque to me. I cannot know everything about you and also I’m opaque to myself. So it’s a constantly kind of relation is something that’s constantly expanding and I think slow this slowness or practicing slowness is like that as well so listening is like that as well. is not a precondition to slow listening, but if you are just repeating the same practices without any curiosity or without any reflexivity and considering, you know, always looking back at the motivation interrogating one’s kind of intentions and motivation, then you don’t– at a certain point, you don’t grow and you’re just repeating the same thing over and over, which can be an important kind of way of preserving of some of the best– that’s how cults work also. Like, they’re very– like, actually, this place I was mentioning, that’s why– the sea in Chile on the coast is this incredible architectural program like called the open city it’s a not even just a program it’s a whole it’s a whole philosophy and the way of engaging with land and I visited their manner to Chile and the first thing I realized was that it’s actually a bit of a cult that you have to buy into it and they really preserve the the, you know, but that’s what, but, but, and yet they still have all these students in this university that are participating in it, and so it has certain elements that are very rigid, like certain rules, like around certain things, and certain ways you have to, even ways you have to honor the original founders of the, like when I went there, the first thing on the tour was they took me to like the graves of the founders of the place, to like this place. is our kind of home touchstone of this philosophy that we’re inhabiting. But anyway, it’s to say that you, yeah, of course, you don’t want to be, it’s like you can’t be porous to everything all the time. That’s also a practice of care. I mean, that’s how we care for ourselves and one another. We would totally burn out if we were porous all the time. right? But, and yet, yeah, there’s some in between ground, which, you know, maybe Tom Haraway would call staying with the trouble, you know, like this, this, yeah, she writes a lot about that, right, like the friction of the compost pile and all of the energy of everything that’s being up and transforming and mixing and, you know. becoming some becoming soil becoming hummus becoming soil or something something else can grow in so it is a I wouldn’t say to answer what you were saying it’s not a precondition to slow listening but I do think as far as slow researchers concerned I’ve never been interested in the same thinking kind of reading over and over, even though, you know, like this woman, Maria Bleso, who I was quoting, she’s been researching the same thing for 50 years, but it keeps, she’s always learning more. She’s always finding out more and she’s always amazed when something, when something, when she learns something more, even though it’s in a very specific, like it’s, it’s really really the same I’m I’m yeah I think that’s super interesting and I’m also not talking about repetition but I think to me there is a little bit of like within the idea of friction there is this concept or this idea of resistance also you I think is is what I don’t think is necessity for slow listening or but I think yeah I think there’s something so interesting and read the idea of regeneration and also when you’re saying what you can keep researching the same thing for 15 years, but it has to renew itself somehow, or new ideas are adopted. So it’s, for me, it’s very much about a sense of curiosity and returning to the openness, to not close the idea around yourself and become a cult. cult. Yeah, so maybe, I don’t know, I’m not sure why, but I’m struggling a little bit to give in to friction as a concept, but I definitely buy into all belief in curiosity and openness and and receptivity, and sensitivity. It reminds me a bit of something Brandon DeBell was talking about when he gave the lecture, about surrendering to something else. And he also talked about you have to kind of give up yourself in a way. but I agree with you if you give up yourself like to surrender completely to something else or a movement or nature or whatever it may be then I think it’s it’s difficult to you kind of it’s have to hold on to something in yourself whether it’s – That is the thing that the very interesting question, because for me that’s opened us up this idea of also perspective and scale. Because depending on where on the scale and which perspective you have on, there is a myself and there might not be a myself. And depending on where you are and which perspective you are exercising, you need that myself. in order to be. And in terms of being elsewhere, you don’t have it, it’s not even a concept. And I think also to like speak with you already, I think friction might also just leave this board of interest when you become an atom. Like atoms are constant just for us violent, but for them just atoms. But like this transformation and dissolving into something completely different from itself on this scale that we cannot even grasp. It deals with different concepts, different ways of being in the world, different perspective, because the scale has changed that much. And at the same time, we, as a human body, we think there are certain atoms that make us up, but the atoms don’t. doesn’t give us shit. I wouldn’t know, but I’m a human. But it’s just to say that friction might leave the scale as well, depending on if you are in a place on the scale where friction is the constant or what is just a world, and there might be another place on the scale where it is not even existing, depending on how much we can zoom in and out. And I think what you’re saying is really interesting. interesting because how much can be surrendered to our Journey on that scale and what’s points do we that go off myself to such a degree that can I remember that part of the journey on that scale? like I think for us we can maybe talk about what happens when we die what kind of surrendering is that what kind of Transformation on the scale is dying for us because we leave the body but at the same time we don’t know. It’s part of the scale that we cannot really know anything about in our current state, in our current perspective. And I don’t know if this makes any sense to you but I just feel it’s really interesting to think about how issues of friction or the subject or whatever comes into place emerges on different part of the scale and disappears again. and from where we are speaking right now we might be interested in a certain concept that we can see certain part of the scale but we can never really see the whole scale that we can never really look back at ourselves and judge our perspective of that we worry I don’t know precarious in some way yeah but I don’t know if it even makes sense Yeah, the idea of surrendering made me think of something you said yesterday because during the study group exercise outside that your inward journey took you into other bodies. to our, like, the other bodies of the group, rather than inward into yourself. And I wonder if that, if you surrendered yourself on behalf of our, your journey into other, selves or if how much of yourself you took with you into that, into the introspection of others. I don’t know if I’d use the word “surrender” but could… Why are you surrendering yourself or sacrificing yourself in a way? Like sacrificing part, if you understand the difference. Like sacrificing part of your… like you’re being in that moment because you As part of the way that you care for others that you’re always carry because that’s very much you to always care about What others are thinking or something, but that everyone is Comfortable Having a full experience or So I’m not sure that I will refer to it as surrendering but we don’t need to start you know but I think it’s interesting because when does surrendering become that surprising and when does that become also the forces of other structures that just does that with you like when is something active when is it passive when is it me as a subject and when is it because I’m becoming a intersubjectivity and I think think, also just referred to yesterday, I don’t think I would know because if you are, let’s say, surrendered or sexified, how do you know that for yourself? Or do you know it with others, through others? Like, do I as a subject know my inter -subjectivity? Or do I only know it as an inter -subjectivity and cannot transfer it back to my subject? Like, what is allowed? in, again, these different phases, what is known at one stage and not transferred to other stages, I just think it’s really curious because I feel that both listening and slowness is attentive to that without trying to fix it, without trying to find ways to transfer or make it more comprehensive. but more just to be aware of that state of the world. But it can also be, I feel like I can, maybe it’s a good way to say surrendering and sacrifice because it’s two different things and when you talked about in the beginning about being sensitive to the atmosphere or yourself. your surroundings it’s very much different from because I feel like I can really take on other people’s emotion on me and then I feel like I’m sacrificing myself for that and that is that is something I can feel in the moment but it’s super difficult to that’s why I’m talking about something holding onto yourself, not giving everything to the situation or something because then it’s difficult to move from there because you are totally in the atmosphere anyway. That’s why I’m talking about something holding onto myself. something that resonates with me also, this, I don’t know if, and unwillingness is the right way to phrase it, but in the lack of other words, and unwillingness to sacrifice my entire self, or to let go of everything that I am. But that’s why you have to trust like Eduardo is someone he says your essence, like he simultaneously like believes, you know you can be changed by the other, you can expand, you can but everybody has a certain essence and that’s also part of your your opacity, your opiveness which is like that’s not even fully known to you but you can trust those things. You can trust that. And I think that, I don’t know, so many, I’ve had so many thoughts and so many things I would like to share here, but one thing was just to go back to something you said earlier about friction being a kind of going against something which it is, I mean, technically, I mean, that’s what it is. is. From the perspective of two hands, it is. Or the perspective of, yeah, anything that’s coming up against something else. But, um, but that’s why one of the words we have for receptivity is also being non -judgmental, because I think there’s a difference between going into some kind of judgment, even a judgment of, not judgment of oneself and what you were just saying about it. also that’s more of a awareness of maybe a pattern that you have that you need to break. And we have a lot about breaking one’s subjectivity also in the book, but also, but that it’s, how can you be in a state of acceptance? Like, I don’t know if it should be on the recording, but I was, talking to my publisher the other day and I was explaining that a conversation I had with some friends and someone mentioned the fact that many people these days believe the world is flat. Again, you know, like a pretty large percentage. And we were at this dinner and one of my friends was saying, I could never, you know, that he would never say anything. down at a table with someone who believes the world is flat because we have to believe in these fundamental same truths and I was like yeah what what bearing does that happen have on your interpersonal relationship with someone whether they believe something like that like whether the world is round or flat actually it’s nothing to do with I mean it does in some way have to do with who we are right now but and then my my publisher when I was recounting this was saying yeah but then you would be sitting with the person but carrying all this judgment about the person and that’s revealed something to me about about her because that’s also part of it it’s not that then that then it is a point of friction actually or then it is I don’t know if this is the best example to have given but it just it’s just to say like can you really be with the other and without bringing judgment or some frequency, can you really listen like, I think it’s Emilio Contino or someone contributed to the book and you’re talking about listening down, listening without the need to respond, like just listening and receiving without already formulating the next book. thing that we want to say. But one thing is receiving that, another thing is how to receive that that might also hurt you or you disagree with or that pushes you more than you are willing to be pushed how to do that. I think it was brand of the proposed that question like how do we listen to that that we disagree with because that’s why the judgment is difficult to remove. Like, like, yeah. would say that with the view of you, I hope that I will listen to you without judgment, but that’s also because I think I like your judgment already. Exactly, we’re kind of all moving in the same direction. Yeah, but how can I then listen to that which my judgment is harder to get go of? And my question here would be in which way do we control our judgment? Like in which way can we make ourselves aware? of it and let go of it? That’s something that we have the capacity to do. And when are we made out of that judgment? When is the judgment integrated and made up of us? That we need to let go of a bigger structure with more risk, with more, I don’t know, if it’s systemic or structural. I don’t know, but some judgments are easy to go off and others are not. if not impossible, then at least for me, uncomfortable, difficult, because I don’t even understand that judgment. Just also, I think for me in terms of this slowest and listening, that is also the motivation goal of it, like why keep doing it also because it’s endlessly challenging. us there’s always a new judgment that we have to face and deal with one that we did not even know that we have perhaps until we are met with it and we have to face it and stand trial once again yeah and then you have to also where is my judgment coming from and also where is the thing that I’m judging where might it be coming from Which could be, you know, so how can you go beyond that, whatever that is, to still arrive at some kind of empathy or some kind of feeling of, like I was saying yesterday, fellow feeling. I don’t know where that came from yesterday, but it’s sort of, yeah, to feel, to find a place where you connect, in spite of all the rest of it. And I mean the other thing, the other reason I wanted to go back to this thing about judgment is also or about that kind of friction is also that in response to what you were saying about being a singular being or something like none of us are really, we have our essence but we know that the human body is a whole of violence, we know there are trillions of organisms, we know that you know studies are done have been done anyway about different mental states you know our emotional states that have directly to do with what’s happening in your microbiome you know if your gut bacteria are more healthy or out of balance or whatever that can lead to to more other kinds of friction other kinds of reactions or whatever so yeah it’s a very it can keep getting bigger and bigger. Like how much, like, do a speaking now, is it me, or is it my actual volume, or is it my, yeah, but, yes, please. I’m just wondering, because I think this whole idea of judgment is very interesting, but I’m wondering if it’s always judgment that we meet. meet these kind of frictions with? Or is it also compassion and love? There’s other kind of reactions that I don’t think that I would consider under the category of judgement. I think there is a paying attention to someone’s like you’re talking about because going so far that you cross lines or I wouldn’t want to cross those lines necessarily in the listener or in the recipient. That might also be a form of judgment holding me back or me judging how, where the other body’s person’s boundaries might be. But I’m just wondering, and I don’t know the answer to this, if it’s if compassion is a form of judgment or some things separate, that is a consideration of someone, someone else’s personal bubble to return to that idea or space or boundaries. I think the beautiful answer would be that and more, because it is and it is also more. And recently I heard this good podcast about how… the sound of human beings are the most scary sound for all other living beings, like all other animals. Who was who said this? A big study in the… But sounds like our industrial sounds or are human just the human voice? Just you walking in nature scares all other parts of that forest the more than anything else. And they did this big study where… they send it out, the sound of a human being walking or talking, and they were able to register how different animals were responding, and how would they then respond to other sounds. And the sound of humans were the most scary one. – But is that the same if you have an indigenous tribe living somewhere in four centuries? – But that’s the question, yeah. I mean, I can understand how one of us… us would scare, you know, I think. Yeah, I think that, I didn’t read the whole study, I only heard the podcast. But one thing that we mentioned was like, for example, the sound of a gunshot. Do not scare animals because they’re not used to it yet. But you walking was terrifying. So I guess that’s a much older sound. So perhaps it’s the same with indigenous people, I wouldn’t know. I’ll also say that hopefully because the reason I’m mentioning it because I love being in nature and I’ll have this idea this judgment that there was good thing to be in nature that me laying in the grass where I stood at the place was all right it was a good thing but it was only perhaps very good for me like the whole place I would very much disturb it and scared it. But now I’m also wondering if I stayed long enough and the animals could use to me, would they then be alright? Would their judgment of my sound also outbend itself can meet? Because one thing is that we actually know something, that I have a sound that scares. Another thing is how do we learn how to listen to that we disagree with and deal with it? Because Because now I know that I should perhaps not think of me walking in a forest as a necessary good thing. I should know that I’m now scaring all these things while I’m doing it. So while I’m doing it for myself and I’m being happy about it, I have to also deal with me scaring all the other animals. But this is not the same as that I should not go in the forest. Now we just have to find ways how to listen together with that we disagree with. The animals did. with me and me perhaps disagreeing with just walking here, making sound as a neutral, good thing, because clearly it’s not. But it’s a long practice. – And it’s interesting how you still justify going into nature. – Right, typical, but I’m also often asian. It’s not like I have somewhere else to go. I can stay in the city, but the city is also part of this planet. So I don’t want to say this is the line of the border. It’s more to how to remember my own position. Apparently my position is that of the most scary animal. And not a nice human being who likes to pet the wild animals because they don’t like me. They’re scared with good reason perhaps. perhaps. But it’s just this judgment and this, I guess, judgment is also a witness of my position. But for me it’s something that we can first recognize and then deal with, negotiate, change. It’s not a static thing. Because I think it’s fair enough that the wolves are very scared of my sound. But it’s not the same as wish you be able to find new ways of sticking to that? Yeah, I suspect it would be different for people who are living in a more complex biodiversity ecology from the beginning. Then their sounds would be part of that for centuries would be part of that. acoustic landscape. Yeah. But when it’s new sounds they are not that afraid. Like for example a gunshot, something that we would expect animals to be very afraid of, or a car, but they were not. Yeah. And this was done in this, I can remember the name, the codon, this big undisturbed forest. It’s not a jungle, but it’s like old, old forest. There’s no roads or anything. No human beings, as you say, are still in there. So of course it’s different. But it’s interesting when you hear something, the more you hear it, the more familiar you are with it as if people are living there. But that’s not the case here, it’s the opposite actually. But there’s also a question about perhaps like the time scales. Like we live in so short time and things take a lot of time also to pass into our DNA, into our histories, into our traces that we leave behind. So something is changing all the time and other things takes time. of years to alter just a tiny little bit. Also just to maybe give ourselves patience. Yeah, and yet at the same time, I mean also speaking of this being in nature, and it may be like… like, when you say to what degree is something, not a conceptual exercise, but something in my imagination and maybe not happening for the other, ’cause there’s a lot of, you know, practices about reciprocity with nature, and I mean, I’ve personally had a lot of experiences with plants or that friend of mine, Maria, I was talking about plants do things. in her presence that like, or even just materials, they do things in her presence because of the attention she gives that just doesn’t happen for anyone else. It’s like, it’s quite extraordinary to witness it. So, but like I was just going back to this this idea of dialogue, I was looking at some of these quotations. quotations from our book, like Oliver Elias on this contributed something, talking about touching something or somewhere is touching something or someone is where content emerges. And Jonathan Hayesweig, who I quoted before, talks about reassembling oneself in real life. to others or through others. So I thought that was interesting and it’s important to have, I mean for me to remain optimistic about like humanity as well. have to believe that we can do that with other species, with our environments, that actually they also are ready to collaborate with us when we approach them through in a more open way, or through this lens of what I call not knowing. also. So I wonder, yeah, I’ve just had so many different thoughts as we’ve been talking. We’ve got a bit stucco on this judgment word, which is, yeah, um. I keep returning to this idea of of something you’ve been talking about, Caroline’s Day and yesterday also, the space in between, entities, things, and we’ve talked about different, it kind of keeps coming up also in the dialogue as the creation of the third space. It’s like the spaces. and I wonder if that is, I’m not completely sure where I am going with this, but is there something in this creation of an empty space that allows for maybe true slow listening, that there’s also something in this idea of pausing or standing still, as you told me about this morning, that the resistance of movement or being part of something, is there something in this idea of empty? like a space, creating a space that offers, maybe my question is, is it possible? And is it useful to create spaces for things to emerge from? that is not a very elegant way of putting it and I’m not even fully certain that that is what I was trying to say but yeah is spaces in between something that should be enforced or should it be discovered or should it it can you? Yeah Enforce them or encourage them even Does that make any sense? Yeah, I wouldn’t I wouldn’t use a word like enforcing enforcing, I liked Lucas’s word yesterday, insisting maybe, insisting that there’s always, and maybe this word space, I’m thinking also of the word field, or thinking of kind of, you know, let’s say we’re still a spatial reader, the Japanese concept of ma, like emptiness, which is this like, the pregnant void, you know, I don’t know, like the, the in that that that was kind of what I was imagining yesterday when I went to that woman like at her hair and I thought like wow there’s always space there’s actually tons of space in between her individual hairs and there’s sound but there is actually something that you could hear if you want to talk about in terms of sensory that sense of hearing but of course it’s there’s always, you know, you can always get to, well I guess a physicist might say that you get to, there’s a point where you get to, that it’s not infinite maybe, but yeah, but it’s just to insist there’s always more, you know, there are, insisting also on what we call not knowing, insisting on practicing on, oh, aware of all that one doesn’t know in any situation. Even if you take a position about something, it’s to also be aware and be not just humbled, but to me, not knowing is super exciting. To me, the unknown is like another thing that makes me optimistic. about gives me the possibility to be optimistic about about our current experience but is it then about insisting on adding value to these spaces or emptinesses that already exist or is it something that can and maybe should be created? I think that my natural reaction is to say it has more to do with awareness than acting, than needing to act. the awareness. Another thing, you said that you used the example with Ma as a pregnant space, and I thought that notion or this image of it is quite meaningful. It’s like, who holds the creation of that pregnant moment? It’s a very large entity of many different agents. making this a prudent moment. And of course from some perspective, positions, there’s a stronger creation than others. But it’s more that the wholeness, this awareness of the whole possible becoming that is the point. It’s not about making judgment of who and what and when, but more than it is in becoming. It is possible. There’s this potency. potensi. Og jeg tror, at jeg liker Marsen, men det er også denne element, med det mystiske, med det gæld, der er noget, hvor meget ude i kreativiteten af vores kapitalitet, det er mere vigtigt af, at kreativiteten sker på andre skædder igen, hvor vi ikke er kreativer, og kreativiteten sker på noget, der er noget, der er vigtigt af, at det sker på andre skædder igen. done to us, with us, through us. And I like that, that there’s something attentive towards that rather than, yeah. Because you ask if we should create or design it, or how should we insist on it. And I think, at least part of me, insisting on that. if I don’t know, if I cannot know, if something appears empty, then it’s only from my perspective. And there’s still this crazy, happy name becoming in place that is a dialogue or a question of perspective. But I really love also what you said, Karen. that, or maybe you look at this, the pay in, the idea of paying attention, that idea holds listening and slowness, as I see it. Because listening is a practice of attention. Oh, yeah. For sure. I mean, I would say. Slowness is, maybe there is a difference between attention and awareness. Because attention is giving your attention to something, right? That’s urban and awareness. awareness, like I think you can be aware of the unknown. I’m not sure you can pay attention to the unknown. That’s just sort of a… But would you say that slowness is a practice of awareness? I would say probably the word I own come back to is awareness but I mean that’s giving one word like a lot of fun you know and maybe that’s a good interesting it’s always interesting then to look at the etymology of the word or look at how this word languages or what exactly but yeah, and at the same time, that’s I think the beautiful thing about, so that’s like in the slow, spatial reader I was talking about. Ma, this architect who has committed a fundum who wrote about it, like she gives this example, actually maybe it’s when I interviewed her on my podcast, but she talks about this, sorry to get my screen all smudged, but this pavilion that was designed and now she knows it. Island by Hiroshi Sugimoto, who, of course, is super interesting in terms of listening and slowness, and how that she had been studying ma– I mean, she was doing her PhD about ma, basically. And when she saw this gap between the stair and the pavilion, that was when she was like– that’s it, you know, she could feel that this energy in this space that somehow had been so in that way you can give your attention to, like my is something you pay attention to actually, like an energized space. But that’s also how Maria Blasso works in talking about the words because she’s really really, it’s through this attention. She’s aware that there’s something more, so she practices attention because she knows that something will emerge, that there’s always new energy to be unleashed or to be discovered for, yeah, there’s always this latent potential. So, but it doesn’t necessarily… mean a potential to, I don’t know, to create or to actually act. I don’t know that it needs to be. But, I mean, what we know from Maria’s work, those of us who’ve been working with her, studying with her, is that she’s finding out things by experimenting with materials that mathematicians are finding out from a completely different, you know, coming at it from two or three years ago. mathematical formulas and Explores so and arriving at the same conclusions, which is kind of I’ve been Trying to Define slowness for myself these last couple of days because for me listening is very Intuitive the definition of that and slowness is still I understand it, I believe in it, but I’m still struggling a little bit to define it. And then these last couple of days I’ve been kind of landing on slowness is attention to process a little bit as a way for me to comprehend it. and I’m really curious how that resonates with you and then now I’m even thinking that maybe it should be slowness is awareness of process. I would also say slowness is always in process. does that make sense? Because for me, it’s something that’s always, even for me, I’m thinking about slowness for 20 years. I mean, it’s always working, it’s, it’s always working in me and it’s always revealing, something more has always been revealed in a way. So it is, it’s in me and it’s always in me and it’s always in me. it is a process I’m not sure it’s an awareness it can be practicing slowness can part of it can be learning being aware of process I think that’s what Brandon was talking about with third listening maybe that’s the right level being what he said about the process for listening listening to the process process? – It is third listening. – Yeah, okay. I’m aware of it, but it’s brutally simplifying the concept. – No, but that’s why like when yesterday, when Lucas was saying, like if somebody, you need someone to say, I’m the bureau for listening, I says, oh, what does that mean? What do you do? You know, it’s like when people ask me, me, oh, what is slow, slow, what is slow research, what is slowness? And for me, my answer is, I mean, I can never really answer even after 20 years because I know what it is for me, but I know that what is for you is different and that’s what slowness is, is also in that difference. Like, there’s slowness in the difference between how we understand it and how we understand it and how we understand it. slowness also in how we might like we’re doing now how we might meet in discussing it and trying to find out more about it in in what having curiosity like you were saying being eager to being like someone’s saying to me like being happy with what is but eager for more anyway like there is a kind of I know that that’s why I like working with it with students for example you know or with I mean anyone the way that I work because I was invited some kind of new dialogue for an artist can be even very woman artist but it’s like that’s something that that What I want is that something and what I see happen is that something is working in you know each person in a different way and That’s something all of there’s always something new that emerges from me I know and that’s yeah, so that’s And I don’t and also at the last thing I’ll say is just that I don’t need people to Say oh, I’m a slow slow art and practicing slowness in my art, I’m a slow writer or I’m a slow whatever.” That’s not the point. That has nothing to do with it actually somehow. It’s not about, and that’s kind of a misconception early on that people wanted to say, “I’m a slow designer, I’m a slow bit,” or “What is it?” Yeah, so that’s where it was. was kind of going back to the, maybe at that point it was going back to the process, like slowness is a verb, it’s something you’re practicing way more than that. And the same with the walk, yeah, and the same with the walk, it was not that we were moving slowly, it was the perception, sensing, and awareness of it, and the process of that, that was the slowness. slowness, because one thing is the pace that we’re moving in. Who gave us shit? But how does that enter a dialogue? How does that alter? How does that challenge? How does that open up? And in which way do we do it? What kind of awareness, what kind of process about it do we have? Do we have the same process as we always? Or is the process itself also changing? And by doing that, we have, I would say, slowness in the process. Yeah, and that’s just to, there was, we were talking before about repetition. I think you were saying, or I was, we were talking about repetition, and I was thinking, yeah, I guess like a score in a way encourages repetition, and yet if the score is performed like this in different, there’s endless possibilities for what is experienced through the process of performing. performing the score, following the score? Yeah. And also, I really thought this wonderful slowness as awareness of process, but I really wanted to change that it was like slowness as awareness in process, that the awareness itself was also being altered, changing, challenged, that there was like this unsureness of how do we keep doing it. because like also with my background in philosophy awareness is such a wonderful and difficult and crazy concept and what is it even but by placing it in a process make it both much more easy to comprehend and interactive and at the it’s in the process then I don’t know would he know it twice it’s something I’m learning and discovering and didn’t go off and then yeah I don’t know but I just love this little I don’t know if it makes sense for you as well but I love that it was in it as a verb I like that so as long as it’s awareness is the then always on that starts within yourself? I mean, if you don’t feel like awareness of in the process or being in the process, how can you get into that? How can you… you, if you said it didn’t really matter if you walked slowly before or if you walked fast, is it then something that is, that starts, I mean, how can you create a space where you can get into some kind of slowness, that’s the big question. I think the beautiful of that question is that, that perhaps all situation in time and space holds the possibility of it and at the same time it is not like imposing itself, it’s not necessarily your choice but it’s also your choice, it is this constant and more, both this but also more, that something that you can both force it but you can also not force it. det, og så vil du både være der og ikke være der. Jeg ved ikke, jeg er ikke sikker, at der vil være nogle budsk sønværs, der gælder de sønværs. Men jeg tror, at for mig er det politiske, og ikke, og ikke ved, jeg ved ikke, at det vil forbejde det, men det kan være det, men but it starts there. Only because I feel like I could write you a manual right now, and at the same time that manual might not be true, and it will be true for five minutes ago or in ten years. And that’s, I guess, my point. It can be done, but it can also never be done. A manual for slowness, what do you mean? But that’s the thing I think any manual can also be for for the slowness Yeah, because it is this awareness in the process so so if I was reading a manual for how to build a car If the intention was to build that car, it would not be of slowness, but if I read it Under I don’t know under so circumstances where my awareness of the manual was changing, perhaps to a point where I didn’t even know what I was doing it for, but I was still doing it. I was discovering something in it. Then I could label that. Well, it was my awful slowness. But then if we’re thinking about slowness in this way, and we, I’m afraid I want to create like a space that somehow on different levels show slowness and listening. How is it possible not like concrete ideas that’s not what I’m asking for it’s just how to get into that. It’s a good question. And I think the beautiful thing is that what we’re doing there, just sitting here, is also part of that answer. This is part of it. And whatever we come up with fits into that. For this specific question, question, I feel like slowness is also a question of trusting the process. The awareness of the process, or attention to the process, but also trusting the process. Yeah, it’s not by practicing slowness and slowness for five days. Yeah, some sort of space will… emerge? Yeah, yeah, it was also not that I asked to, like, this is the way I was just, like, thinking about how is it, like, how is it, yeah. Is it even doable? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but I think that, like you say, it’s, we, I guess, on Friday somehow will be be sharing thoughts and experiences of moving toward a horizon of slowness that we will never reach kind of thing. Because yeah, it’s almost– well, I don’t want to say slowness is like a passing through or something. But it’s– always, I always like to insist on, for insist or say that, you know, especially like working with students or something where there’s like a beginning and an end of a course or something and then people always think they have to produce something at the end. And it’s sort of like, well it’s good to produce things as this kind of markers of artifacts of your process. That’s how it works. would see them. But this is not an end point for the process. Like the process is something that should be a set in motion and is still working in you, whether you want to, as I said, whether you want to refer to it as long as you’re not. And then there can be these, yeah, these marks along the way. Like in that book, Jonathan Hayes -Faikoi, I’ve been quoting a few times today, talks about this. Like there’s, you know, it’s not that there should not be a horizon, but you never reach that horizon. And you also should, there should always be these moments of, for her, there’s always these moments of returning to friction, actually, because otherwise things become stagnant or and then you’re not moving anymore. So you can arrive somewhere and celebrate that you’ve arrived somewhere and then you, you know, and then you. That was her kind of way of thinking about, or expressing about slowness. I think that’s exactly why I was kind of trying to frame it as attention to process, or when it’s a process of how you want to put it. And that is what this whole testing ground residency is. It’s, it’s, it’s… an attention to the process without a predetermined end point or end goal, which is so freeing, yeah. – And it’s funny how we, the first week spent a lot of the time, like the theme was like the framework, but also to insist and make sure that it stayed like that and open, testing -ly, because like, like, I don’t know, but it was, there’s something magical about having a whole week of just setting the frame rather than entering it. That we made it a process. Like before we showed up, it could be anything. And we tried to open up that possibility for as long as possible, while constantly it was also narrowing in. Because. because things happened. But it was kind of magical to have that, how to talk about the situation and the framework without inhabiting it, but just imagining it, caring for it, searching around it. And in many ways it’s the same thing we’re doing now with our awareness. awareness in process. Listening to you, there’s just one last thing maybe I want to say, because I know it’s time to break for lunch. It’s to remember, for us to remember, I would propose, that when we talk about slow listening, like slow is not only an adjective. adjective I mentioned that before it’s not only describing like a kind of listening I like to encourage people to think of slow as a verb as an active verb like some years ago someone I was working with called it like doing slowing you know like that you’re actively doing it and that is something that’s also kind of like it’s an entity almost that has a presence in the process of listening so yeah so it’s kind of has a and that’s maybe where to get back to awareness process awareness in process somehow as long as it is here again in this listening. I think something that is very much on my heart is always to insist on what is already always there like like this very pregnant world that we’re living in and for me the listening has been a way to do that and slowness is of course the same like that’s where they join each other and they enforce each other and able each other because there’s different ways of becoming aware and staying with that what is already there and that many different layers and skills of the moment. But I also think that’s a way of perhaps also entering like how do we do it? Like that simple attention towards our awareness of what is already there and how much I don’t know what is already here is just extremely. extremely generating of not only material, but also emotions and feelings and perspectives and imaginations and whatever, but it’s just this little tiny, gentle gesture of pointing towards listening, slowness, and boom, it’s just like, at least for me, the world is exploding in complexity and beauty. beauty only by this little gesture and of course that’s how I feel but I hope that other by placing these gestures in the world they’re like oh wait a minute but maybe and do we want to add a few more things now No. No? No, I’m okay with that. I was just looking at the time. Yeah, exactly. We will continue this in a way, just not, maybe not recording, but I think it’s just a start. But that’s a good ending note for the recording, that we will continue it one more time. Yeah, yeah. Alright, then I will press this button.